You’ll Never Believe How a Website Started by so Few People Got so Huge [Infographic]

Viral content publisher Upworthy has changed the Internet forever with its instant-virality strategy. First off, what does “viral” even mean? It involves people clicking and sharing the heck out of a piece of content. Upworthy went live on March 26, 2012, and it was founded by Eli Pariser (MoveOn.org), Peter Koechley (The Onion), Chris Hughes (Facebook) and Adam Mordecai (Founding Curator). On December 3, 2012—270 days later—Upworthy boasted 791,000 Facebook fans, 10,000 Tumblr followers and 43,000 Twitter followers.

What’s the recipe behind Upworthy’s success? They understand that titles can have a massive impact on virality. Here are two different titles to share the same video: “Zach Wahls Speaks About Family” and “Two Lesbians Raised a Baby and This is What They Got”—which one do you think generated buzz. While the first one generated a million clicks, the second garnered a whopping 17 million views.

Do you want to write content that can get shared and potentially go viral? People will share your content when it strikes a good balance between being emotionally stirring and entertaining. Also, keep in mind that great headlines tend to have an element of mystery without being overly vague.

To learn more about viral content marketing, check out the infographic below!

Brian Wallace is the Founder and President of NowSourcing, an industry leading infographic design agency , based in Louisville, KY and Cincinnati, OH which works with companies that range from startups to Fortune 500s. Brian also runs #LinkedInLocal events nationwide, hosts the Next Action Podcast, and has been named a Google Small Business Advisor for 2016-2018. Follow Brian Wallace on LinkedIn as well as Twitter.